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OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 11/15/13

Will the Chilean People Save the U.S. by Electing Michelle Bachelet?

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Message William K. Black, J.D., Ph.D.
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The "US oppose[s]" adding "chagas" to this list of exceptions.  Chagas is a very nasty, sometimes lethal, parasite that causes immense misery from most of the U.S. to Argentina.  Over 8 million people are infected with Chagas disease in Latin America.  It is estimated that 500,000 Americans suffer from Chagas disease.

Chagas is particularly common in rural Mexico and Bolivia.  In addition to its primary insect vector, It can be spread through contaminated food, blood transfusions, and by an infected mother to her fetus.  This means that Chagas disease is a serious threat to Americans as well as our neighbors.  Chagas is insidious because it often lacks observable symptoms during its chronic infection phase, even when it is causing potentially fatal damage to the heart.

Vigorous efforts to reduce Chagas (there is no vaccine) should be a high priority for the U.S. and Latin America (Mexico, Chile, and Peru are also parties to the TPP negotiations).  The U.S., however, is insisting on excluding Chagas disease from the list of "epidemics" for which a nation may "protect public health by promoting access to medicines for all."  This kind of "understanding" clause is designed to provide guidance on the correct interpretation of TPP.  It appears that the current state of the TPP draft is that the other nations included Chagas but it was excluded from this clause due to the sole opposition of the U.S.  The provision of "access to medicines for all" is particularly vital in the case of Chagas disease because early drug treatments of infected newborns are extremely effective in eliminating the disease in newborns who were infected maternally.

The combination of indifference to the victims of Chagas disease and depravity of trying to prevent governments making available low or no-cost medicines to the victims -- an action that will lead to many more victims (including tens of thousands of American victims) is so obscene that it brings to mind what lawyers consider the most perfect and deserved legal insult.

Richard Kluger quotes this passage from Plessy (the Supreme Court decision that upheld racial segregation as consistent with "equal protection of the laws") in his book Simple Justice (1976):

"We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

Kluger then comments:

"Of all the words ever written in assessment of the Plessy opinion, none have been more withering than those " [of] Yale law professor Charles L. Black, Jr., who [said that in] " the two sentences" "The curves of callousness and stupidity intersect at their respective maxima.'"

The Obama administration's effort to block governments from providing medicine to the victims of Chagas disease represents the intersection of callousness and stupidity at their respective maxima.  The heads of state of Chile, Mexico, and Peru have disgraced their office by failing to denounce the U.S. position on Chagas, to make public the TPP documents, and to withdraw from the treaty negotiations.

In his January 27, 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama blasted the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision on grounds that help explain why TPP represents the ultimate in hypocrisy and betrayal of all that Obama claimed to champion.

"To do that, we have to recognize that we face more than a deficit of dollars right now. We face a deficit of trust -- deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years. To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve.

That's what I came to Washington to do. That's why -- for the first time in history -- my Administration posts our White House visitors online. And that's why we've excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.

But we can't stop there. It's time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my Administration or Congress. And it's time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office. Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'm urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."      

Obama has caused the TPP to violate every standard he endorsed in his 2010 SOTU address.  Lobbyists are involved in making TPP policy -- secretly rather than "openly."  They need not disclose "contact[s]" with government officials making TPP policy.  There is no limit on the political contributions that corporations can make to influence TPP policy or disclosure of their lobbying positions.  The TPP is "bankrolled" by the world's "most powerful [corporate] interests" including what Obama described as "worse" -- "foreign corporations."  TPP policies are not made by the American people, but they are also not made by our elected representatives in Congress.  TPP policies are kept secret from the citizens of every nation and their elected representatives in parliament.  Obama's "fast track" process for adopting TPP is designed to eliminate normal congressional powers.  Obama knows TPP is indefensible and that 95% of Americans would vote against it.  He is desperate to avoid any open, democratic debate between the people of America and the corporations, most of them foreign, that TPP seeks to make our unelected, all-powerful rulers.  He "hateth the light" because sunlight remains the best disinfectant.  This is why President Bachelet could do the world a priceless service by immediately making public the entire travesty that is TPP.

Once TPP is adopted, democratic rights and national sovereignty will be extinguished by corporate power which can be exerted, again in secret, before a tribunal run by private lawyers (what I call the "plutocracy panels") with strong conflicts of interest that lead them to favor corporate interests.  I will expand on that disgrace in a second column.  A nation that asserted its sovereign rights to protect its citizens from an epidemic such as Chagas (if U.S. opposition continues to exclude it from the list of epidemics that allow the nation to "protect public health by promoting access to medicines for all") could be crippled by economic penalties that would literally bankrupt a nation.  A nation with a sovereign currency would normally be immune from bankruptcy, but the plutocracy panels have no meaningful limits on their powers so they could impose massive fines payable in another currency, which could bankrupt even nations with sovereign currencies.

Criminalize IP Violations: Ignore Fraud Epidemics Led by Bank CEOs

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William K Black , J.D., Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Bill Black has testified before the Senate Agricultural Committee on the regulation of financial derivatives and House (more...)
 
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